Failure is an Option

It was a big deal last week when Kobe Bryant became the all-time leader in missed field goal attempts in the NBA. As of this writing he had missed 13,421 field goal attempts and counting. But there is a big problem with focusing on that “negative” supremacy. The real point (pun intended) is that it takes failing that many times to also make 11,121 field goals and be considered one of the best to ever play the game. A .453 lifetime field goal percentage for a guard is phenomenal. You have to fail 13,421 times in order to succeed 11,121 times.

If we don’t risk failure we will never achieve success. Kobe Bryant has risked failure 24,542 times. That is 32 times for every hour he plays. How many times have you risked failure in the past 40 hour week you worked – was it 1,280 times like Kobe? We like to tell our kids that sports teach a lot of life lessons. Maybe the most important lesson is that you have to take risks in order to succeed.